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GM labels in force from April 2004
Grolsch swings to SIG
Bacteria clean waste water
European firms ignore patent information
Obesity training wasted on GPs
GSK in seventh R&D heaven
Barcodes to get reprieve?
Regulation
GM labels in force from April 2004
Food and beverage processors will
have to conform to the European Union’s new rules on labelling
genetically modified (GM) food from April 2004. US food exporters,
especially maize farmers, have already condemned the move.
All foodstuffs that contain or
consist of GM organisms, or contain ingredients produced from GMOs, will
need to be labelled. A threshold of 0.9% will apply for the accidental
presence of GM material, below which labelling of food or feed is not
required. There will also be a 0.5% threshold for the presence of GM
material that has not been approved for use in Europe, provided it has a
favourable safety assessment from the European Union scientific
committees. This threshold will apply for three years.
The regulations will not apply to
food produced using GM processing aids, such as some cheeses, or products
from animals fed GM animal feed.
Risk assessment of GM foods will be
centralised through the European Food Safety Authority. Authorisation, if
granted, will be for 10 years, after which companies will have to apply
for it to be renewed.
The second of the European
Commission's two GM regulations, on traceability and labelling, was also
adopted and published at the same time. This regulation will provide a
harmonised EU system on the documentation needed to trace GM products
throughout the supply chain.
Business
Grolsch swings to SIG
Grolsch, the Dutch brewer famed for
its swing-top bottles, has picked Italo-Swiss equipment supplied SIG
Simonazzi to supply six filling lines for its new brewery, said to be
currently the only greenfield brewhouse project in Europe.
Grolsch is a new customer for SIG
Simonazzi, who combined with Danish engineering consultants Danbrew on the
project. Grolsch hopes that the brewery will be the most efficient in
Europe. To achieve this it is focusing on the total trackability of the
process flow and on the production costs for each individual production
batch and/or operating shift and/or stock keeping unit. By working on
total cost of ownership it is paring down the manning level necessary to
operate the line, maintenance time and expenditure, and maximising line
availability. It is especially conscious of cutting elctricity, water,
heating, and cooling costs.
SIG will supply six packaging lines
and auxiliary equipment covering
• Caustic System
• Swing Top Manufacturing Line
• Bottling Line, returnable/non
return-able glass bottles, 40,000 bph 0.5 l, Swing Top
• Bottling Line, non-returnable
glass bottles, 40,000 bph 0.355 l
• Canning Line, 72,000 cph 0.5 l
• Bottling Line, glass returnable
bottles, 60,000 bph 0.3 l, bulk products
• Bottling Line, glass returnable
bottles, 60,000 bph 0.3 l, special products.
Innovation
Bacteria clean waste water
An in-house waste water treatment
developed by Japanese semicondictor maker Miyagi Oki Electric is to be
sold commercially by another Oki Electric subsidiary, Oki Environment
Technologies.
The innovative process distributes
wastewater to different pipes, according to type, then applies the
appropriate bacteria. Bacteria cultivated in concentrated amounts
decompose organic substances into water and carbon gas, reducing waste.
Treatment tanks are kept at 36degC throughout the year, maximising
bacterial activity, using excess heat from air conditioning boilers and
other facilities. The new process improves decomposition efficiency by
50%, which enables the company to treat 97% of wastewater internally. This
drastically reduces the volume of organic wastewater, and cuts disposal
costs. Payback is measured in months: the firm spent 8m yen renovating the
treatment facility for the new process, cut its organic wastewater 70% or
1980t/y, saving 35m yen a year in waste disposal consignment costs.
European
firms ignore patent information
Most companies in Europe ignore the
information in patents and therefore lose an important source of business
intelligence and innovation, says a new European Patent Office (EPO)
report.
The EPO studied 1904 companies, 443
patent lawyers and 29 universities in 30 European countries, aiming to
develop more user friendly patent information services.
“Most companies and particularly
SMEs (small and medium enterprises) have no idea what patent information
can do for them,” says the report.
Almost all the companies in the
study wanted more information on innovation and markets. “Patent
information is an unparalleled mine of technical information and business
intelligence,” the EPO says. Up to 80% of all applied technical
knowledge is said to be exist patent documents, and cannot be found
elsewhere.
Generally, companies in the north
and west of Europe have better access to patent information. But companies
in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia also enjoy
relatively good levels of access, while in Sweden and Liechtenstein access
is quite poor, the report says.
Companies that are best equipped to
exploit patent information tend to be large, innovation-focused, and to
have specific departments for dealing with patenting and intellectual
property (IP) issues.
SMEs ignore patent data because
they find it inaccessible, difficult to use and expensive, and would like
more help to overcome these hurdles. While the Internet makes a good
starting point, companies should also use conferences, professional
organisations and commercial suppliers.
Obesity
Obesity training wasted on GPs
Training doctors in weight
management techniques does not slim their patients, the British Medical
Journal reports this week.
Moore and colleagues evaluated the
impact of a training programme intended to improve the management of
obesity. The study involved 44 general practices (22 completed the
training and 22 acted as controls) and 843 obese adult patients. Control
practices were asked to provide usual care to their patients.
After 12 months, there was no
difference in weight between those patients attending trained practices
and controls.
Implementation of obesity
management was low and did not achieve improved patient weight loss, say
the authors. They suggest other strategies to manage obesity in primary
care urgently need to be considered and evaluated. These might include
motivated and dedicated obesity specialists, use of leisure services, and
use of the commercial weight loss sector.
Research
GSK in seventh R&D heaven
UK-based drugs companies
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is to create a seventh centre of excellence for drug
discovery (CEDD), which will concentrate on biopharmaceuticals, a field
where GSK is “progressing a growing number of assets in its early-stage
pipeline”. The new unit will start up this year.
Barcodes to get
reprieve?
Ink that contains nanoscale
magnetic particles could extend the life of barcode technology in the face
of the onslaught of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.
Researchers at the UK’s Durham
University described the new anti-counterfeit technology at a conference
on nanotechnology in crime prevention and detection in London last week.
The barcode lines contain atoms of
an allow of nickel and iron. Each is printed in a similar way to
electronic circuits with each printing creating a unique magnetic field.
This can be measured, recorded and later checked using polarised laser
light against a database to ensure that a barcode is genuine.
Because the printing process
distributes the magnetic particles randomly, barcodes with specific
magnetic fields cannot be created to order. To beat the system,
counterfeiters would have to break into the database. Fraudsters could be
disrupted if the barcodes are printed on material that is destroyed if
tampered with.
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